


dig up her bones but leave the soul alone

by lionheartedgirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Bingo Fill, Gen, Mentions of Buffy, Post-Series, and others - Freeform, dawn the watcher, giles - Freeform, mentions of death of past slayers and watchers (nothing graphic), multi-gen, or watcher in training, touches on the Dawn&Buffy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4547793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheartedgirl/pseuds/lionheartedgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The Watcher’s diaries had been assigned to her as part of her studies. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>To be a Watcher, one had to be skilled in many things; ancient languages, translating, prophecies, fighting techniques, and of course history. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Watcher’s Diaries were filled with history.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	dig up her bones but leave the soul alone

The Watcher’s diaries had been assigned to her as part of her studies. 

To be a Watcher, one had to be skilled in many things; ancient languages, translating, prophecies, fighting techniques, and of course history. 

The Watcher’s Diaries were filled with history. 

Of Slayers of the past, of vampires and demons, prophesizes that had come to pass and those that had been stopped. 

Ferocious battles, battles that had left whole villages and thousands dead. Battles that had been much smaller but always fierce. There was nothing easy, nothing without danger. 

Hellmouths around the world, each trying to find a way to open up. Those who tried to make it possible. 

Different dimensions, some even visited by the Watchers or Slayers they talked about, that had written the books. 

There were no Slayer diaries of course, though Dawn thought there should be, something to pass down to other generations. Instead it was the Watcher’s job to record what had happened, to imprint the personality and abilities of their individual Slayers into words. 

The words changed over time of course. The languages too, which is why she learned them first. 

(Dawn, special as she was, was put in charge of translating them all, but that would come later. After she had learned more.)

The words changed and the languages changed and the Watcher’s changed, once there was only sixth months between one. The writing changed in each one, often precise and careful, and then hurried, rushed, and cramped, as though time was almost up. 

It probably was. Or they thought it was. 

(Giles diaries were not among the ones she or the others had access to. She could only imagine the times his writing had changed, had rushed across the pages, as Buffy tried to stop the end of the world. Again.)

Dawn turned each page carefully as though she thought they would break, ran her fingers over words that seemed familiar though she had never met the people who had written them. (Never met the people they had written about.)

She learns things. 

Like she was supposed to. 

Mostly though, she learns that all Watcher diaries are left unfinished. 

They talk of epic battles to come or maybe just an ordinary day of training and then—

Nothing. 

Dawn knows what this means,

A Slayer had died. 

That was the ending of each and every diary, though it never says it. 

A tear hits the page she was reading—

it’s unfinished, written in cramped writing and there is blood on the page

—only the magic protecting them kept it from destroying the old pages. 

Dawn was strong, she had lived through the death of her mother, of her sister (twice), Tara, but in the end it didn’t seem to matter. Because she knew, she knew why Giles’ diaries were not with the rest. 

His wasn’t done yet. 

It couldn’t be. 

Buffy was still alive.


End file.
